The Medium is the Message

This blog post is for the lecture on 10/29/18.

I want to start by saying, before I forget, the fact that Stallman’s FOUR freedoms begin with ZERO and therefore ending in THREE. This bugs my OCD to no end, and I just thought I should mention it.

Anyway, I appreciate the point he is trying to make about how history thrived on plagiarism and could continue to do so. My only qualm with this, as mentioned in class, is that as intellectual property, there’s no way a person could get paid for it in this instance. Although, I think if nobody got paid, then that would solve the problem. So maybe it’s more of an all-or-nothing type thing. It would definitely better benefit society, but then that would require more jobs available that would equal the number of people currently getting paid for intellectual property, under the all-or-nothing rule.

With this, I come to a compromise. If the intellectual property can overwhelmingly better society, then it should be free. This includes life-saving drugs and medical treatments as well as things like gnu and linux. I don’t believe this includes music since, without it, humanity would survive but be really sad.

Now for the scavenger hunt, this search was a roller coaster from beginning to end. The first article I found talked about how a “country music teacher of color” got arrested for kidnapping. Which isn’t really related to the music, but was still an interesting read. When I reached the relevant, and further mentioned, article I knew I was in for a ride. The article begins with “If your favorite disc jockey’s voice has recently developed a ‘daown home’ twang-welcome to the hoedown.” First, I don’t appreciate the misspelling of down because only SOME of us talk like that. I can’t say anything about the hoedown reference because, let’s be honest, country music families (including mine) kind of fall in that category. Next, the article states:

“In fact, they get downright ornery if one trys to put country into the fad music category with disco.”

Let me just start by making sure everyone reading this noted the comparison to DISCO. To be fair, being born in the early 90’s didn’t really educate me in the realm of disco but I’m positive that country and disco are nowhere near the same realm. So, they must have been somehow related back then which means I would not have been a fan in the 80’s. However, upon further reading, they’re making the comparison on the basis of their idea that country will be a one-hit-wonder type like disco was. Little do they know in 1981 that disco would continue to be popular amongst those weird aunts that only go clubbing while it’s simultaneously bingo night.

The newspaper wraps up the article with the phrase “And as any country bumpkin can tell you, ‘If’n you ain’t sure about where you’re goin’, you’re better off stayin’ out o’ the woods.’” For starters, I detest the bumpkin reference, but I’ll let that slide. Secondly, what’s wrong with that saying?! It is good, well natured, advice that has both a physical and practical reference. Therefore, I think next time this writer gets lost in the woods because they didn’t know where they were going, they should have to come back and apologize for not listening to this golden advice.

I would also like to note, as a final thought, that I suppose we do get downright ornery if one trys to put country into the same category with disco.

Article: https://search.proquest.com/news/docview/512247907/pageviewPDF/C539E3436D1142AFPQ/1?accountid=14541